On Sunday night, during his 928,365th televised coronavirus briefing, Donald Trump made an extremely hard sell for the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, whose effectiveness against COVID-19 is still virtually unknown. “What do you have to lose?” the president asked of taking a drug for which there is very little data, as though he was talking about trying a new flavor of Laffy Taffy or experimenting with two-ply versus four-ply toilet paper. “I really think they should take it,” he said of ill patients. “But it’s their choice. And it's their doctor's choice or the doctors in the hospital. But hydroxychloroquine. Try it, if you’d like.”

In fact, as health experts and actual doctors have stressed, there is a lot patients could lose by trying hydroxychloroquine just for yucks, given that the drug can cause a heart arrhythmia that could lead to cardiac arrest, for starters. “It causes psychiatric symptoms, cardiac problems and a host of other bad side effects,” Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University told the New York Times, noting that she had never seen an elected official hype a drug as a miracle cure the way Trump has. “There may be a role for it for some people,” she said, “but to tell Americans ‘you don’t have anything to lose,’ that’s not true.” So why, then, has Trump been pushing hydroxychloroquine like he stands to make a cut of the drug’s sales, or maybe license his name to the brand when this is all over? The first answer, which is the same for most questions asked about Donald Trump, is that he’s a glorified carnival barker immune to facts, who prefers the idea of quick—untested!—fixes over having to act responsibly for whole months at a time, and who, as a businessman with numerousfailures under his belt, is used to simply walking away from the messes he makes, or being bailed out by his dad. Also, he has a thing for listening to advice from the worst people dispensing it if it suits his worldview, a tick he has not adjusted in light of the whole deadly pandemic thing.

In the case of hydroxychloroquine, the president has latched onto the counsel of a group of individuals who are no more qualified to opine on the matter than Melania “The tennis pavilion must go on!” Trump. One of those individuals is White House economic adviser Peter Navarro, who you might remember from such hits as sending emails under a fake name in support of his tariff policies; the claim that an impaired manufacturing sector leads to “an increase in abortion, spousal abuse, divorce, and infertility”; and being hired by Jared Kushner after the first son-in-law found him on Amazon. Despite the fact that the drug has not been shown to work against the COVID-19 in any significant clinical trials, and that previous reports from China and France did not include control groups, Navarro loooooves himself some hydroxychloroquine, a position he made clear by flipping out on Dr. Anthony Fauci over the weekend for having the temerity to suggest the medicine was not ready for primetime.

According to Axios, in a meeting over the weekend, Navarro—who, to be clear, has zero public health experience—dropped a stack of folders in front of the group and started talking about studies he’s seen showing the “clear therapeutic efficacy” of the drug that, in the real world, don’t actually exist. Fauci, who did go to medical school, reportedly pointed this out, saying that at this point there is only anecdotal evidence that the drug works. He then added that much more data is needed, which Navarro seemingly heard as, “Your mother’s a whore, Pete.”

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Fauci's mention of anecdotal evidence “just set Peter off,” said one of the sources. Navarro pointed to the pile of folders on the desk, which included printouts of studies on hydroxychloroquine from around the world. Navarro said to Fauci, “That’s science, not anecdote,” said another of the sources. Navarro started raising his voice, and at one point accused Fauci of objecting to Trump’s travel restrictions, saying, “You were the one who early on objected to the travel restrictions with China,” saying that travel restrictions don’t work. (Navarro was one of the earliest to push the China travel ban.) Fauci looked confused, according to a source in the room. After Trump imposed the travel restrictions, Fauci has publicly praised the president’s restriction on travel from China.

But Navarro—who is known for public meltdowns—apparently wasn’t content to simply embarrass himself in the semi-private setting that is the Situation Room. He also took his act to the airwaves on Monday:

In a tense confrontation on CNN’s New Day Monday, anchor John Berman grilled...Navarro on why he’s more suited to dispense medical opinions than Dr. Fauci. “So why is Dr. Anthony Fauci, the lead infectious disease doctor in the country, wrong about [hydroxychloroquine], in your opinion?” Berman said. “I have two words for you: Second opinion,” Navarro replied.

To be clear, usually when someone seeks a second opinion for, say, a cancer diagnosis, they’re getting it from another oncologist, not the woman who waxes their back or their bookie from the dog track, but sure, second opinion.

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Berman cut Navarro off. “What are your qualifications to weigh in on medicines more than Dr. Anthony Fauci? Why should we listen to you and not Dr. Fauci?” The Trump economic advisor went on to tout the work of Dr. William Grace—who appeared recently on Fox News with Laura Ingraham to advocate for hydroxychloroquine—and suggested that Berman invite Grace on his program. Navarro then responded to Berman challenging him on his bona fides. “My qualifications, in terms of looking at the science, is that I’m a social scientist. I have a Ph.D. And I understand how to read statistical studies, whether it’s in medicine, the law, economics or whatever.”

“Or whatever.” 2) So, again to be clear, his qualifications are zero, zip, zilch, nada. But go on.

“I would listen to my doctor about whether or not I should take it,” Berman said. He added, “I would not listen to someone involved with trade policy.”

So that’s one of the guys who makes up Trump’s coronavirus brain trust. Another? Dr. Oz. Yes:

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In the past couple of weeks, Trump began hearing more and more about—and watching Oz, now a Fox News regular, discuss—hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that Trump aggressively touted as a coronavirus treatment, much to the dismay of various medical experts and scientists. Over these two weeks, the president had specifically made a point of telling aides that he was interested in what Oz had to say and that he wished to speak to the much-maligned television personality, according to two people familiar with the president’s requests. It is unclear if Trump has spoken on the phone with Oz lately, as he told aides that he wished to do so. But Trump has told officials that it would be “a good idea” if they talked to Oz, one of the sources added. Top administration officials, including Trump’s administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Seema Verma, have privately spoken to Oz in recent days to discuss the virus and his views on the possible treatment, three sources said.

Oz, for those unaware, has been dubbed a quack by fellow doctors and in 2017, three Mayo Clinic scientists wrote a scathing article about him in the AMA Journal of Ethics. “Should a physician be allowed to say anything—however inaccurate and potentially harmful—so long as that individual commands market share?” they wrote. Or, as physician and scientific researcher Henry I. Millerput it to the Daily Beast last month, “He’s been dishonest and he has been dispensing misinformation to millions now for years. I wouldn’t trust any of his observations and don’t see how he would have responsible and valid views on coronavirus.”

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And, of course, it wouldn’t be a Trump administration clusterfuck without the input of one Rudy Giuliani, who’s been itching to get his beak wet since L’Affaire du Ukraine wrapped up, according to the Washington Post:

In one-on-one phone calls with Trump, Giuliani said, he has been touting the use of an anti-malarial drug combination that has shown some early promise in treating covid-19, the disease the novel coronavirus causes, but whose effectiveness has not yet been proved. He said he now spends his days on the phone with doctors, coronavirus patients and hospital executives promoting the treatment, which Trump has also publicly lauded. “I discussed it with the president after he talked about it,” Giuliani said in an interview. “I told him what I had on the drugs.” Giuliani’s advice to Trump echoes comments the former New York mayor has made on his popular Twitter feed and a podcast that he records in a radio studio installed at his New York City apartment, where he has repeatedly pushed the drug combination, as well as a stem cell therapy that involves the extraction of what Giuliani termed “placenta ‘killer cells.’”

Giuliani said he has spoken directly to Trump “three or four times” about a potential coronavirus treatment...In his newly fashioned role, Giuliani...has solicited medical tips from a controversial Long Island family doctor with a following in the conservative media, as well as a former pharmacist who once pleaded guilty to conspiring to extort the actor Steven Seagal.

And there you have it, folks. Not really sure what else there is to say here except that we need to keep Dr. Fauci in a protective bubble from which both anyone who might have the virus and people like Rudy, Oz, and Navarro are forced to stay 60 feet back.